


The Importance of Double Checking

by Alshoruzen



Series: Little Steps [4]
Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Misunderstandings, Police, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:21:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23233915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alshoruzen/pseuds/Alshoruzen
Summary: Before they all got used to Shinichi's crazy boyfriend, there were many strange misunderstandings at the police station. KaiShin
Relationships: Kudou Shinichi | Edogawa Conan/Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid
Series: Little Steps [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1642813
Comments: 4
Kudos: 567





	1. Carried Away

**Author's Note:**

> Pairing: KaitoxShinichi
> 
> Rating: T
> 
> Genre: Romance/Humor
> 
> Note: I said on FF.Net that this should have 4 chapters, and I still intend to add a fourth, but since I haven't finished it, I am posting it as three (the ones already up on FF) here for now.

Phone

"Oh hey Kudo-kun, your class just let out, right? Will you be coming over right away?"

"Yes, I will. I was just calling to see if there are any crime scenes I should head over to or if I should just go straight to the station."

"Why don't you come to the station first?"

Megure-keibu had just settled down to read the stack of reports he was supposed to be reviewing when his phone rang again. When he answered it, he was surprised to find that it was Shinichi calling again. Had the boy run into a case again? He winced inwardly. Poor kid attracted enough trouble for multiple lifetimes.

"What happened?" he asked, expecting to be told about some murder or other. What he heard instead, however, was completely different.

"It's not that. I actually just remembered that I have a few urgent errands I need to run. So I won't be able to go to the station today. I'll also be a bit busy the rest of the week."

Megure-keibu blinked, startled. "Oh, well, that's perfectly fine. Just don't go doing anything dangerous," he added as an afterthought.

There was a laugh. "Oh, I won't."

When they'd hung up, Megure found himself frowning. Shinichi wouldn't normally have laughed at something like that. The laugh itself had sounded a bit different too, but he couldn't quite put his finger on why. The voice had definitely been Shinichi's. So… Maybe he was just tired. He hadn't gotten much sleep last night due to a late night stakeout that hadn't led anywhere. Shrugging off the slight sense of uncertainty, he returned to the reports.

Sight

"Kudo-kun's been kidnapped!"

Everyone in the station looked up as Takagi came bursting through the doors in a wide-eyed panic.

There was an instant uproar as everyone in the station crowded around him, asking questions.

"I was on my way back from interviewing that robbery witness," the frazzled policeman explained. "The route I was taking passes by Kudo-kun's university. I was waiting at an intersection when I saw him heading down the sidewalk in the direction of the station. I was about to call out a hello to him when I think he must have seen something in one of the side streets because he stopped, looked around, and turned off the main road into the side street at a run. I was worried, so I hurried over to see if I could help. It took a moment because I was on the other side of the street, so I didn't see exactly what happened. But when I got there, I saw a man disappear around the opposite corner carrying someone. And there was no sign of Kudo-kun anywhere! I ran after them of course, but by then there was no sign of either of them!"

"What did the kidnapper look like?"

"I—I didn't get a good look, though I'm sure it was a man. Whoever it was though, he could move really fast."

"Where did this happen?"

"When did it happen?"

There was an instant ruckus. Megure-keibu ordered a team of officers to head out and start examining the scene and asking around. Another team began calling his friends and acquaintances to see if anyone had heard anything. It didn't take long for them to discover that no one had any idea where the Heisei Holmes had disappeared to. They also heard that he had, in fact, been headed for the station after all.

"But he told me that he wouldn't be coming today," Megure muttered to himself, confused. But he was positive that that had been Kduo-kun's voice. He'd known the boy since he was a child. He couldn't have mistaken it. It was possible though that Shinichi hadn't told anyone else about his sudden change in plans. It didn't really matter anyway. All that mattered was that the boy was really missing, and no one could reach him.

Soon a full scale search had been organized and launched. It was a good thing there weren't any other urgent cases at the moment.

Criminal

Elsewhere in Japan, one Kudo Shinichi was not at all confused by the peculiar events of the day. Yes, he had been knocked out on his way to the police station, and yes, he had been carried off by his assailant. But no, he didn't need to be rescued from the clutches of some criminal with evil intentions (the culprit was a criminal, but his intentions weren't evil—although the culprit himself would freely admit that they weren't very pure either. In fact, many of his intentions were quite—indecent, but considering his relationship to his 'victim', he rather thought he was acting within his rights).

"Did you have to grab me off the street?" Shinichi grumbled at his captor, who also happened to be his boyfriend and an internationally wanted thief. They were seated side by side on the edge of a bed in what appeared to be a comfortable apartment. Shinichi couldn't help but notice that the apartment had no doors. The windows too were the kind that didn't open, and the glass was patterned and textured so that he couldn't really get a good look through them. It was probably one of Kaito's secret hideouts. "Couldn't you have just asked like a normal person?"

"But if I'd asked, you could've said no, and I already had everything planned out. It would have been a terrible waste of a good vacation," the magician thief reasoned (rather unreasonably, in Shinichi's opinion, but apparently his opinion was not important). "Besides, this was more fun."

"Your idea of fun is seriously warped."

"But you love me, so you must not mind~."

Shinichi groaned, covering his face with his hands. "Someone kill me now."

"I have a better idea."

The detective let out a startled squeak as he suddenly found himself pinned to the bed flat on his back.

"Kaito!"

Face

Shinichi didn't realize the problems his involuntary vacation had caused until two days later. Kaito had disappeared to get them some groceries—or so he'd claimed. Shinichi had no idea how the magician was getting in and out of the apartment. He'd tried looking, but he couldn't find the door. He couldn't find his phone either, but he'd expected that. So he'd decided to watch some TV and enjoy a nice cup of coffee.

He gaped.

That was when he heard the sound of grocery bags being set down coming from the kitchen.

"Kaito! Why is my face on the news as a missing person?!"

Kaito glanced over at the television screen from where he was making grocery bags appear out of thin air. "Hmmm, that's strange. I'm pretty sure I called Megure-keibu for you." He thought for a moment as Shinichi continued to stare at the newscaster in mounting mortification. "Now that I think about it, I think Takagi-keiji might have caught a brief glimpse of us leaving."

"…"

"Shin-chan? Are you okay?"

"…"

Excuses

Takagi-keiji, being the one who had actually witnessed the kidnapping, had a hard time believing that it was the simple misunderstanding that everyone else had agreed it was after Kudo-kun had called and explained that he'd gone out of town. Because of that, he found himself watching Shinichi very carefully when the detective returned from his so-called vacation to who knew where with who knew who. Shinichi certainly didn't act like someone who had just come back from being kidnapped. He seemed perfectly normal, except…

"Excuse me, Kudo-kun?"

"Yes?"

"You…aren't hurt, are you?"

Shinichi looked back at him blankly. The expression looked honest. "I'm fine, really."

"But you were limping," the policeman pointed out uncertainly.

For some reason, Shinichi blushed. "No I wasn't. You must have been imagining things."

Takagi didn't respond immediately. Was it just him or had that denial been a little bit too emphatic? Would Kudo-kun try to hide it if he was hurt? Yes, Takagi thought, he would. The young detective was just that kind of person. But on the other hand, even Shinichi wouldn't be stubborn enough to leave any bad injuries untended. So whatever it was, it was probably minor. Well, he'd keep an eye out just in case. But he supposed that he couldn't really do anything about it if Kudo-kun didn't want to divulge anything.

His curiosity wouldn't let him go though, so he decided to try a different angle.

"So where did you go for your vacation?"

Shinichi's mind raced. "It was a little place in the mountains."

"That sounds nice. Was it fun?"

"I—I guess." Shinichi's blush darkened. He hastily changed the subject. "The connection was bad up there though, which is why I didn't answer anyone's calls. Then I saw the news, so I headed down to the nearest town to call Megure-keibu and clear things up. I'm really sorry about the trouble it caused."

Takagi laughed a bit sheepishly, scratching at the back of his head. "I kind of have to apologize for that too. It was partly my fault. I was just so sure that I saw someone carrying you off…" He trailed off, giving the younger man a questioning look.

Shinichi pretended not to notice. "Anyway, I have to get going. I promise I'll remember to let you guys know before I go on any long trips next time." As he walked away before Takagi could call him back, Shinichi cursed the real culprit behind the fiasco in his head. The least Kaito could do if he was going to spring something like that was help Shinichi come up with a few good excuses to give his colleagues. The stupid thief was so sleeping on the couch tonight.


	2. Special Deliveries

Case

"Shin-chan, would you like to go out for dinner with me?"

Shinichi sighed, dragging a tired hand across his face in a vain attempt to clear the sleepiness from his mind. "I'm sorry, but I have to finish going over these."

Frowning, Kaito came over to stand behind Shinichi's chair. Looking down over his detective's shoulder at the files spread across the desk, he raised an eyebrow. "These are the recent armed robbery cases, aren't they?"

"Yeah."

"I thought you said you'd already figured out who the robbers were. I distinctly remember you leaping out of your chair the other day to tell me all about how these were all connected and that it had to be "them". Were you wrong?"

"No, I wasn't wrong," Shinichi huffed, sounding mildly offended. "Everything checked out, and I have more than enough concrete evidence to prove it was them."

Kaito's other eyebrow rose to join the first. "So then why are you still looking at these cases?"

Shinichi groaned, slumping where he sat as his head fell back against the back of his desk chair. "We know who they are, but we can't find them. I think they might suspect that we're on to them. So I've been combing the cases to see if there might be any clues about where they could be hiding."

Kaito looked enlightened. "No luck then?"

"No… I just feel like there has to be something though. I'm just—not seeing it." Shinichi sat forward again, face setting with determination until it was interrupted by a yawn.

"You know, running yourself ragged probably doesn't help the thinking process."

"I know, I know, but… These people could strike again at any moment. I can't just go to bed."

Kaito could have pointed out that the detective's answer totally just proved that he didn't get it, but he didn't. After all, he doubted that Shinichi would get any sleep even if he did agree to go to bed (really, was the concept that good sleep meant better work that hard to grasp?). Instead, Kaito left for the kitchen, expression thoughtful.

Copy

"Kudo-kun? I thought you had already left for the crime scene. Are you done looking it over already?"

"Not yet," the detective replied. "I was hoping I could get a copy of all the evidence and reports we've collected for this case."

"Another one?" Shiratori raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you receive a copy a few days ago?"

Shinichi looked embarrassed. "I did, but I accidentally spilled coffee over most of it. Besides, I'd like to have the most updated versions."

"Ah, I see." The officer smiled just a bit condescendingly. The boy was good at his work, but he was still just a student. "I will go make a copy for you now then. In the future, do try to be more careful."

"I will."

No one saw the toothy and extremely un-Shinichi-like grin that flashed across the young detective's face as he left with the files in hand.

Delivery

When Shinichi arrived at the police station that morning (he didn't have classes that day), it was to see a crowd of officers in front of the front doors. No one was going inside though. Instead, they all seemed to be gathered around something, talking amongst themselves and staring.

"What's going on?" Shinichi asked, approaching the crowd and trying to get a look at the center of interest. It didn't help that just about everyone there was taller than he was.

One of the officers looked over at him. "Oh, Kudo-kun. It's really weird. When we got here this morning, they were just here! The guys on the night shift didn't see how they arrived either."

"They?"

Apparently the station had received a special delivery.

The package? The two men responsible for the series of armed robbery cases that had been plaguing the city.

The two men had been bound in so much duct tape that they looked like mummies. Or they would have looked like mummies except that mummies didn't have neon pink and green hair. They were wiggling feebly and protesting the rough treatment through their gags.

"But who caught them?" one officer asked the group at large.

Shinichi almost smacked himself on the forehead. Then again, he supposed he really shouldn't be surprised. After all, certain magician thieves wouldn't have the reputations that they did if they didn't excel at finding things that didn't want to be found.

Evidence

"Who's that? He's got one damned suspicious smile."

"He's the main suspect in this murder case. He killed his wife for her insurance money."

Kaito made a disgusted face. "What a bastard."

"Yeah."

"So why'd you call him the main suspect? You sound pretty sure."

"I am. Unfortunately, the officer who first handled the case gave the guy too much warning, and he was able to get rid of the most incriminating evidence. All we've got left is circumstantial evidence."

"But you're sure it was him?"

"Positive."

Arrest

"Officers! Please, you have to arrest me!"

Every police officer currently in the station stared at the man who had just come charging into the station. The sheer panic on the man's face and his disheveled clothes and wild hair rather got in the way, but eventually they recognized him.

Takagi gasped. "Isn't he…?"

"The man we suspect murdered his wife last week? Yes," Satou replied, her eyebrows almost in her hairline. "We were still trying to secure hard evidence for his arrest."

"I did it! It was me!" the man babbled, throwing himself at the feet of the nearest officer. The officer in question leapt back, looking just as confused as Takagi felt. "You have to arrest me!"

"So you are confessing to the premeditated murder of your wife?" Satou-keiji asked, stepping forward.

"Yes! Yes, I am. So please," the man sobbed, groveling on the floor as he devolved into hysterics.

"We'll need to get your statement then," the female officer stated, reaching down to help the man up and leading him towards one of the interrogation rooms. When Satou returned an hour later, the rest of the officers gathered around her.

"So what the hell was that about?" one man asked.

Satou shook her head slowly. "I'm not sure. It was strange."

"But why did he come to confess? Didn't he say?"

"Yeah, he did. That's what's strange. He seems to think he's repenting by turning himself in. He said something about the devil coming to take his soul away if he didn't."

"…What? He really said that?"

"Yeah. He's convinced that the devil visited his house last night, and that he'd be back tonight to take him if he didn't turn himself in."

"That's…weird."

"You're telling me. I guess the guy's conscience just caught up with him or something."

Responsible

"What did you do to that poor man?"

"Hmmm? What are you talking about?"

"The guy who turned himself in this morning? The one who thought the devil was after him?"

"Some guy turned up at the station saying the devil was after him?"

"…Don't pretend you're not responsible. I know it was you."

"Can you prove it?"

"…"

"Tsk, tsk. You should know better than to make accusations that you can't back up."

"…"

"And anyway, bastards like that don't deserve any sympathy. Did you know he was actually laughing about the whole thing when he thought he'd gotten away with it?"

"I didn't know…and you didn't know either, seeing as you weren't there. Isn't that right?"

A laugh. "Yep."


	3. Ghosts and Secret Admirers

Idol

Shinichi looked at the row of bright faces before him and sweat-dropped. They were the faces of Division One's newest officers. Megure-keibu had decided to introduce them seeing as Shinichi was practically a part of the division anyway, and the portly inspector thought that it would be good for the young to get to know each other better. They would after all, he was sure, be working together quite a lot in the future.

But back to the now.

Shinichi had gotten used to being famous. He didn't like it as much as he used to—or maybe he should say that he didn't like it as much as he used to think he would back when being a detective had felt like a grand, exciting adventure. He'd learned the reality of it all the hard way, but that was a different story. The point was that he was no stranger to attention, wanted or not, but it still made him uncomfortable. The paranoia from living in hiding for a few years wasn't something that could just be shaken off. It didn't help that, though they were younger than the other officers—new to the force and all that, they were still a little older than he was. The youngest of them was two years his senior.

It always felt a bit weird to be idolized by people who were older than you.

"I've heard a lot about you. It's an honor to meet you!"

"I'm looking forward to working with you."

"Hey, is it true? That you helped take down a huge criminal organization?"

"Oh, I was wondering about that too! How did you do it? The media was really vague about it. What was it like?"

In the face of the deluge of questions, Shinichi didn't know where to begin. It didn't help that half the questions were ones he would much rather not answer. He was relieved when Megure-keibu bustled over and handed them a case to work on.

Duckling

"So what's with the ducklings?"

Shinichi lowered the menu he'd been handed to give Kaito a bewildered look. "What ducklings?"

The magician lounged back in his seat, watching his date while simultaneously keeping an eye on the rest of the restaurant and the street outside the window. "You know, those three officers you were with outside the barber's shop earlier. They were trailing you around like baby ducks all day."

Shinichi spared a moment to wonder how Kaito could know they'd been following him all day if he'd only seen them at that one crime scene (besides, Shinichi hadn't had classes today, but he knew for a fact that the magician had had two), but he decided he'd rather not know. "They're Division One's new recruits. Megure-keibu wants me to give them pointers. Teach them what kinds of things to look out for and what kinds of questions to ask—that sort of thing."

"Shouldn't he have assigned a senior officer to do that?"

"He did that too. But he told me he'd like us all to spend some time working together."

"Preparing for the future then, eh?"

Shinichi shrugged. "I guess so."

Station

"The—the station is haunted!"

"What?"

"I came in late last night to fill out a report on that drug dealer we arrested the other day, and I saw lights flickering on and off in the room where all the forms are. I thought someone else was there, but the light went off just as I got to the door and no one came out! When I looked inside, the place was empty."

"Maybe it was a malfunction in the lighting system? Or maybe someone forgot to turn the lights off and the bulbs happened to die when you arrived."

"That can't be it because I turned the lights on when I went in, and they were all working fine."

"Oh. Well, a malfunction then. Things happen."

"But that's not all!"

"It's not?"

"Remember that weird code Chiba-keiji found in that warehouse two weeks ago?"

"The one that led us to those underground weapons dealers?"

"Yeah, that one. Well, do you know who solved it?"

"I didn't think about it. I assumed it was a joint effort by the group working on the case."

"It wasn't them at all. I overheard Chiba-keiji telling Takagi-keiji that he just came in that morning and found a note on his desk. The key for breaking the code was all written out there for him."

"So someone else solved the code."

"Chiba-keiji thought that at first too, but he asked around to find out who he should thank and no one knew anything about it."

"At least if it is a ghost, it's a friendly one."

"You're mocking me, aren't you?"

"Let's just say I think there are a lot of possible answers that don't involve the supernatural. I mean seriously, you're a police officer. You should know that."  
"What about the coffee then?"

"What about it?"

"Haven't you noticed that on the days when Kudo-kun comes in early, there's always a cup of coffee already on his desk?"

"Now that you mention it, I guess there is."

"No one's ever seen the person who puts it there."

"That sounds more like Kudo-kun has a secret admirer than that the station is haunted to me."

"But I asked around, and everyone said it wasn't them."

"Of course not. That's the whole point of secret admirers. They're secret."

"How about this then. Two days ago, when I went to the restroom in the middle of briefing, I heard a weird sound from inside the bathroom. But when I went in, all the stalls were empty. There was no one there, but I could still hear it."

"It?"

"It was someone laughing."

An involuntary shiver. "I have to admit, that one's just a little bit creepy."

Mug

Shinichi had gotten used to finding a mug of hot coffee waiting for him on his desk on those days when he didn't have morning classes and decided to head to the station early. Ran had asked him once why he even had a desk at the station, but then they'd both thought about it and realized that it only made sense. Shinichi certainly spent more than enough time there. And he suspected the police were angling to coax him into joining them upon graduation instead of going the private route.

But that was a story for a different time.

The point was, he'd gotten used to the mysteriously appearing coffee. Okay, not so mysterious. He knew it was Kaito, and he appreciated the gesture. He also suspected that the thief found it vastly amusing that the police officers were still trying to figure out how it got there each time.

This morning, however, Shinichi had arrived to see a whole crowd around his desk. Having only expected the three young officers he was still assigned to working with, he was understandably confused.

Until he saw the mug.

It was a new mug. His old one had been broken in an unfortunate accident two days ago when one of the other officers had mistaken it for his own.

This mug had his photo printed on the side.

It was a photo of his sleeping face.

He almost groaned out loud. When he'd told Kaito it would be nice if it was more obvious that his mug was his mug, this was not what he'd had in mind.

And was it any wonder that the police were confused? After all, Shinichi couldn't have taken the close-up of his own sleeping face. And even if he could have, they knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't have had a mug made with such a picture on it at all.

Then one of the officers turned to him with an entirely too serious face and asked, "Kudo-kun, have you noticed any strange people following you?"

He could tell that what the officer really meant was, "You might have a stalker. Have you noticed any signs?"

It took a lengthy and rather heated debate to convince them that it had to be someone's idea of a joke. And even after he'd pried agreements out of them, he suspected that half of them were going to be on the lookout for stalkers anyway.

Assault

Shinichi had been on his way to the police station. Again. No, there weren't any cases today—yet anyway. He just currently had nothing better to do. His classes were over for the day, and he'd already finished all his homework. Kaito was out of town too for another of his shows. He'd been gone for four days. He wasn't scheduled to be back until tomorrow, which was why Shinichi was quite shocked when someone grabbed him and pulled him into an alley.

He knew it was Kaito though. He recognized the strong, calloused fingers wrapped around his wrist. And when the shadow stepped closer, he recognized the magician's scent.

Tilting his head back, he looked up into familiar, indigo eyes. Warmth fluttered in his chest.

He would have said something, but he couldn't because a hot mouth had descended on his own. Half of him wanted to complain that an alley was hardly the place for this kind of thing, and really couldn't the magician have just waited until they got home? The other half wanted to melt into a happy puddle. He ended up doing neither as there was the sound of running footsteps behind them.

Startled and so not wanting to be caught like this in public, Shinichi tried to push Kaito away. In turn, Kaito—reacting on thief-honed reflexes—vanished in a puff of smoke.

A chorus of familiar voices reached Shinichi's ears.

"Kudo-kun! What happened?"

"Who was that?"

"What's going on?"

It was the trainee trio.

Not really thinking about who he was talking to, he'd grumbled, "That idiot just grabbed me." He'd been thinking about why Kaito might be back so soon, and it wasn't until it was several seconds too late that he realized how that might have sounded.

His fears were confirmed when he looked around quickly to see that the police officers' eyes had widened.

"No, wait! That didn't—it wasn't—"

But by then it was too late. All his stammered denials were taken as, well, denial. And soon they were worriedly suggesting he see the police psychiatrist.

His protests of, "Really, it was nothing!" only spurred them on.

"This is a serious issue! You can't just brush it off."

He wondered with exasperation why, if they really respected him so much, they weren't stopping to listen to what he had to say. But maybe that was where the age thing came in.

Protect

"Now they think they need to set up some kind of guard to protect me from creepy stalkers!"

Kaito blinked at the detective who had just stormed into the Kudo library. "You have a creepy stalker?"

Shinichi froze for a moment, staring at him in disbelief, then slapped a hand to his forehead. "It's you, you idiot!"

"Oh. Well, there's nothing to worry about then." The magician had the audacity to look pleased. Shinichi was seriously tempted to grab a book off the shelves and throw it at the thief's head, but the books didn't deserve it.

"I hope you're happy with yourself," he grunted, crossing his arms and glaring balefully at his unrepentant partner.

Kaito had the nerve to look smug. "I always am."

Now Shinichi was half tempted to turn around and bang his head against the wall. This was getting totally out of hand, and he wasn't sure how to fix it without causing himself any further embarrassment.

He couldn't exactly tell the police that the "creepy stalker" was his boyfriend. He didn't need the police to start questioning his sanity. Honestly, didn't Kaito realize how hard he was making it for Shinichi to ever introduce him to the police? "Hey, just so you know, the guy who's been breaking into the police station at odd hours to do weird things like put creepy pictures of me on mugs? Well, he's the same guy who jumped me in the alley, and guess what? He lives with me!" Yeah, right. It was bad enough that Kaito was an internationally wanted phantom thief.

He sighed. With his luck, the police were going to walk in on them one day when Kaito had him tied to a bed or something equally awkward and easily misunderstood (er, well, he supposed whether it was a misunderstanding would depend on the details, timing, and whatnot, but again, his luck would probably dictate that it be one of those times Kaito was just trying to force him to take a break). They'd have to list the cause of death on his death certificate as abject embarrassment.


	4. Vanishing Act

Bomb

Sometimes, Shinichi had to stop and wonder why there were so many serial bombers in Japan and how exactly all these people got their hands on so much explosive material. He had lost count of just how many times he had gone somewhere only to find a bomb tucked away in what should have been perfectly innocent places—and that was just sad. After all, such incidents were once in a lifetime events for most people. For Shinichi, they happened so often that he sometimes got them mixed up in his memories.

Today was just another of those days.

He had agreed to take the Shounan Tantei to the mall to watch another live Yaiba performance when he had glanced at one of the large, potted plants inside the mall and seen a blinking light. Upon closer inspection, he'd discovered a bomb. Worse still, there were only two minutes left on the timer. There was no time to call the police or really do much of anything except to holler at the children and parents all around him to evacuate the area. Fortunately, the Shounan Tantei were familiar enough with emergency situations by now to help calm and direct the other children.

The stampede out of the area had the mall's other patrons very confused indeed, but at least the are cleared just as the bomb's timer hit zero.

Or rather, it was almost clear because one of the children tripped. Shinichi, who'd been at the back of the group hurrying everyone along, threw himself at the little girl and scooped him up just as the bomb went off.

He and the child avoided the brunt of the explosion, but the force of it had sent them crashing headlong into one of the mall's abstract art pieces. The amorphous statue had been made of glass. The entire thing tipped over and smashed to pieces, though Shinichi was only barely aware of this as the collision between his head and the sculpture had already knocked him out cld.

Visitor

The first visitor Shinichi saw in his hospital room after the doctors allowed him to have visitors was Megure-keibu, Takagi, and Satou. They were not the first visitors he'd had though, just the first official and legally admitted visitors. Shinichi knew this even though he had only woken up recently because there was a red rose in a simple but elegant vase on his bedside table (though it kind of worried him that all he found was the rose. He'd expected Kaito himself to be present—probably hovering protectively over him while demanding to know what had happened. The fact that Kaito wasn't here meant he was up to something—er, well, he was always up to something, but that wasn't the point).

"Kudo-kun?"

Coming back to the present with a start, Shinichi realized that he'd been zoning out. Now all the police officers were giving him concerned looks. He blushed in embarrassment.

"Sorry. What was that?"

Megure-keibu's brows furrowed but he answered. "I said that the bomb you encountered was only one of seven bombs that all detonated at the same time around the city. All seven bombs targeted events where there would be children."

Shinichi stiffened in horror. "Did they—"

"The local hospitals are full of injured right now, but, fortunately, so far there have been no deaths. Two of the events where bombs were planted had actually been canceled. We lucked out there. Those bombs were probably among the earlier to be planted."

Shinichi sank back into the pillows mounded behind him. "Any clues about the bomber?"

"A few. That's what we wanted to talk to you about," Satou said. "We've compiled what information we could on the people who had access to the less public sites to search for overlaps. But it's a surprisingly long list."

"If you could look over the information and give us an opinion, that would be great."

Recruit

"Is it always this busy in this division?"

Chiba-keiji looked up from the report he'd been sent to fetch to find an unfamiliar officer standing next to him. The stranger was looking around at the beehive of activity that was the station with some amazement.

"Um, who are you?" he asked.

"Ah, sorry. I should've introduced myself. My name's Katsumoto, and I just transferred here from Hokkaido. Today's my first day."

Chiba nodded his understanding. "Well, welcome to Tokyo. It's not normally this busy, but you caught us at a crazy time."

"Does this have something to do with the bombing that was on the news yesterday?"

"Yeah. We're trying to figure out where the next series of attacks will be."

"Wait, the next?"

Chiba nodded solemnly. "A bomb similar to the ones that went off yesterday was discovered in a playground last night. It was set to detonate in three days. If it's the same perpetrator then the chances that there will be more bombs set to go off at the same time are high. We have people searching the city, but there's no way we can canvas the whole place in so little time. So if we can predict where the others might show up, it'll make things all the easier."

"I see."

"Oh, I guess you'll want to talk to Megure-keibu, right? Just come with me. I'll introduce you."

Chiba headed for the meeting room where he knew Megure would be. Reaching the door, he held it open and turned around only to find that there was no one behind him.

"That's odd. Where'd the new guy go?"

Satou came up behind him. "What new guy?"

"The one who just transferred. He was right behind me a moment ago."

Satou looked at him strangely. "I did hear we were supposed to get a new transfer, but I was told he wouldn't be arriving until next week."

Chiba scratched his head. But he figured the new guy must have gotten waylaid by something, and the report he was bringing to Megure was more important.

Later, when he was taking his break, he asked around about the new recruit only to discover that no one had seen him.

At all.

None of them even recalled having seen Chiba talking to him, though they admitted that they couldn't be sure. Everyone was just so busy, and all anyone really saw of anyone else as they hurried past was a uniform. Hearing this sparked some concern for the portly officer. So he checked the station's security cameras only to find that none of them had caught his meeting with the new recruit. Neither had they caught any sign of the recruit himself.

This discovery left Chiba more confused than ever. Was it remotely possible that he was so tired that he had imagined the encounter?

Vanish

"Kudo-kun's disappeared!"

Megure-keibu looked up from the city map he'd been studying as Takagi crashed into the meeting room. "What?"

"I dropped by the hospital on my way here to fill him in on what's been happening," the lanky officer explained. "But he's vanished from his room. The hospital staff are searching the building for him now, but they have no idea when he disappeared."

"So he didn't check himself out?" the inspector demanded.

Takagi shook his head. "And the security cameras didn't catch anything."

Which naturally meant that someone had wanted to hide the young detective's trail. And that bode ill. After all, Shinichi himself had no reason to hide from the security cameras, and he would have checked himself out of the hospital if he'd been planning to leave because he should know full well that it would cause a panic if he simply vanished. The logical conclusion, therefore, was that someone had removed Shinichi from the hospital for their own nefarious purposes.

Add in the fact that they were in the middle of a major case, and the picture became all that much more grim.

Megure immediately set about calling Shinichi just in case while he set an officer to look up the location of the boy's phone. When the detective didn't answer the call and his phone didn't show up on the GPS, the station began to buzz.

It was just as real panic was about to set in, however, that Kudo Shinichi walked into the police station. He still had a bandage around his head and looked the worse for wear, but otherwise he seemed alive and well. When everyone immediately crowded around him, demanding to know what had happened and how he had gotten away, he only looked confused.

Note

"I'm really sorry," Shinichi said again, looking embarrassed. "I thought of something that I wanted to look into. It was after hours though, and I didn't want to wait just in case. I did leave a note though. I guess it got lost…"

Megure sighed but accepted the explanation. "And what exactly did you find?"

Shinichi's expression grew serious. "A few things. I'll start with the timing."

Calm

Shinichi knew, he really did, that he should not be this calm about waking up in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room (again). But here he was, and he realized he wasn't even all that annoyed that he'd been kidnapped out of the hospital. Of course, this was because he knew exactly who had kidnapped him and that said kidnapper had done what he'd done out of love and not because he was a crazy killer (he was just crazy).

He still might have been upset at having his studies of the files from the police interrupted, but he'd noticed the empty file folder on the desk across the room. That meant Kaito had found his notes about the man whose seven year old son had been hit by a car when he was running away from other children who had been bullying him. Kaito would no doubt also see the connection between the son's name and date of death and the locations and timing of the bombs.

And because Shinichi knew all this, all that he did upon waking in the windowless and door-free room was to pile the pillows up behind himself for a better seat and pick up one of the books stacked up on the nightstand.

Fault

"It's going to be your fault if someone really does kidnap me one of these days and no one reacts."

"Don't worry, that won't happen," Kaito assured him. "I promise to always come to your rescue."

"Is that supposed to be reassuring? Because it's not."

"You wound me! Don't you trust me?"

Shinichi was forcefully reminded of his own complete certainty that Kaito would handle the case in his stead and blushed. "I do," he murmured. "But seriously," he continued more loudly. "Next time, can you at least put more effort into making it seem like I'm not pulling random vanishing acts?"


End file.
